RICHARDVAMIR DIES IN FIVE MINUTES but that is not how this story starts.
It starts like this: the five friends plan to meet near the cafeteria at Five Clover’s in ten minutes, that is at 5:34 pm. It is a humid overcast day, the depressing kind. The sky is grey, the air is frosty. If you run through the hive-like campus corridors of their school, you might even feel the bitter slap of the wind on your cheeks. Just the perfect kind of day for this.
At 5:20, the first one to arrive is Dante Browns. He sits inside, by the board that reads Today's Special being followed by a blank list. The waitress smiles at him when he looks up and he smiles back, eyes lingering on the soft edges of her face before shifting to look at the rush of students outside. Most of them are tired after three hour long lectures and some of them are probably Art History students walking to Professor Whitmore’s deadly class.
Five minutes later, Filippa Rosende arrives. “Notes for Richie because that fucker loves to miss classes,” she says while stuffing herself inside the opposite bench. “And my love for you because I love you.”
Dan scoffs. “What do you want?”
But before Filippa can reply, Samaira Shikhar walks inside the cafe, attracting all the eyes around instantly. It's not that she's particularly charming or well-liked, it's just that she's the Samaira Shikhar ─ student council president, head of fashion studies, Instagram influencer and just generally, the prettiest face around. Which makes her all the more untouchable. She's wearing a brown wind coat over a white blouse and darker brown dress pants that linger above her ankles. An inappropriate dress for the day, but of course, she doesn't know this yet.
She'll know it soon, but for now she's as indifferent to those eyes as she is to the future.
Just like Han Kai Tuo, Chinese bred and born, who arrives last. “Sorry, got caught up with the repainting work in the Mezzanine.”
“Its chill, where's Richie?” Samaira asks, eyeing Kai, who is trying to fit his larger than life legs beneath the table. He settles for leaving one of his legs outside the counter before turning to reply.
“I don't know, wasn't he supposed to come along?”
Then it starts. I told you. Five minutes.
The four of them receive identical texts by the same sender. I'm sorry. I love you. Goodbye.
Clair isn't small enough to be a small town but isn't large enough to be a city. It is a kind of town where everyone knows everyone knows everything about anyone. Big enough for a small mall, a public boulevard, its own emo-punk street (Cyberhub), McDonald's and Pizza Hut ─ it's a town larger than other towns but still half as big as the smallest city on radar.
There are three parts in division: the Greens, where the rich people live a destination countryside life; downtown, where everyone else live and Bench Street which isn't a street as much as it is a strip of a neighborhood hanging on a loose piece of land jutting out of the hills around Clair. It's where everyone goes to do unnecessary things, teens go to smoke, adults go do whatever adults do and townspeople just do their own thing. It's a place of rumors, gossips and secrets.
And in a town where first impressions make or break you, rumors of any kind can soil your reputation forever.
Each one of these five friends are known for different things. Dante is known by his last name, by the criminal empire his mother heads but doesn't claim. Samaira is known by her perfectionist nature, by her parent's foreign nationality. Filippa is known as the peacemaker, the star, the one everyone can rely on and look up to. Kai is the awkward geek but talented at heart. He double majors in fashion tech and psycho-sciences although no one is sure how that works.
And Richard? Well he was known as the adopted son of his father, the mayor. Before that, he was known as the son of runaway criminal Damien Stitcher. And now? He'll be known as the dead boy.
Because when the town looks down on you and your mother has become someone else entirely and your father is gone and your sister hates you, there is only one thing left to do.
Richard Vamir died five minutes ago, but he knew what was going to happen before his killer did.
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discuss raye's enlightening question, who is going to win, my darcy vamir or winnie's darcy newman (from a gentleman's guide to murder if you guys don't know, check it out it's everything you didn't think you needed until you see it)?
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